


All the Winter

by scioscribe



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Consensual Mind-Reading, Cunnilingus, F/M, Huddling For Warmth, Stuck in a blizzard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:47:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24012325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: Uhura turned to Spock and saw that his hood was already attracting its fair share of snowflakes.  One, unmelting in the cold, had made its way down to rest on his glossy black hair.“We’re having atmospheric trouble,” she said.  “It’s nothing we didn’t anticipate.  But I don’t think we’ll be able to beam back under these conditions.”
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura
Comments: 9
Kudos: 123
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	All the Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



Cerul was a wintery world, its landscape made almost entirely of strikingly blue ice: ice that had swollen over millennia to form bergs as big as mountains, ice that had trapped enormous waves at the moment they’d crested, ice that had formed crystalline spires so delicate they broke beneath the touch of Uhura’s gloved hand.

She pulled back. “I hope that didn’t disturb anything for you, Mr. Spock.”

“On the contrary. You have revealed how much the brittleness may vary.” He took a few more readings, interest— _fascination,_ Uhura thought fondly—flickering beneath the composure in his face; he made her think of an old-fashioned hurricane lamp, warm liveliness held in by smooth and flawless glass.

Uhura enjoyed these missions, these rare occasions when there was nothing around them but silence. She spent all day with a communicator fixed to her ear, and nine hours of every ten, she loved it: the dense crackle of encoded chirps, the thrill of sender and receiver finding each other in the vast darkness of space, the alien languages unfurling like brightly colored ribbons. None of it like anything she’d done back on Earth, none of it even like anything she’d done off the _Enterprise_. But for that tenth hour, she needed something besides words, besides communication. She needed sound for sound’s sake and silence for silence’s.

She needed, in other words, the sound of Spock’s lyre—and all the unresolved silence between them. All the little things that hadn’t come together yet to make any kind of concrete meaning.

She checked their comm line to the _Enterprise_ , verifying that it was still open. Cerul’s atmosphere wasn’t particularly friendly to communication frequencies, especially when the snow was falling, and she had just seen a snowflake land against the back of her hand.

Sure enough, the signal had gone spotty.

“Problems?” Spock said.

Uhura turned to him and saw that his hood was already attracting its fair share of snowflakes. One, unmelting in the cold, had made its way down to rest on his glossy black hair.

“We’re having atmospheric trouble,” she said. “It’s nothing we didn’t anticipate. But I don’t think we’ll be able to beam back under these conditions.”

“Unlikely,” he agreed. “Please contact the ship—to the extent that you are able to—and assure them that we will find a place to safely wait out the storm.” He was looking past her now, his gaze fixed on one of the immense glacial waves. “Fascinating.”

Uhura made the call—she wasn’t sure that Chekov read more than one word in every four, because she certainly wasn’t getting a clear line, but she trusted him to fill him in the blanks. She had the harder job of filling in _his_ : before their transmission died out completely, he might have been advising her on how best to build a snowman.

The air was full of blue-white snow now, and the wind was carrying the damp chill straight through to her skin. They were both decked out head-to-toe in the heaviest cold weather gear Starfleet had to offer, but against that wind, it might as well have been tissue paper. She was worried about Spock: you couldn’t get much further from Vulcan’s weather than this.

“It’s picking up fast.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the wind.

“Yes.” He was still looking at the wave. “I believe we can safely theorize that Cerul has a long history of sudden and dramatic freezes. It would be advisable for us to not become part of the next.”

She almost shuddered thinking about the two of them frozen against the surface of Cerul, two more ice sculptures on a planet already full of them. “I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Spock.”

He’d sounded calm, naturally, but Uhura saw the urgency with which he found them their shelter: a depression in some of Cerul’s rare natural rock, too shallow to be called a cave . It still couldn’t be called warm, not with the way the stone itself held centuries of Cerul’s chill, untouched by any sunlight, but it was at least out of the wind. They could hear each other again without shouting.

She smiled. “Nothing left to do now but wait.”

Spock nodded. “I anticipate the storm passing us in six point four hours.”

“I’ll need another twenty minutes after that for the connection to clear up.” She added it only because he’d be interested in the most accurate estimate, not because twenty minutes either way would really matter. And in this kind of a blizzard, with the world so whited out that she could barely tell the difference between the sky and the ground, it seemed good to have as many certainties as possible. She lowered herself down to the ground, wincing a little as she touched the frosty stone. “Well, Mr. Spock, I guess we might as well get comfortable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sit on the ground before, but there’s a first time for everything.”

She’d expected him to sit down opposite her, like they were at a table, but instead he sat by her side, his long legs nearly touching hers.

“It is logical to conserve our warmth.”

She started to tease him— _And now there’s a first time for impossible things, too, if you’re suggesting we snuggle up together—_ but then she realized he truly was suggesting that and, what was more, he truly was nervous about it, or at least as nervous as Uhura had ever seen him. Maybe ill-at-ease was the better way of thinking of it. Either way, the texture of the silence between them had changed.

Because, of course, if she was going to follow logic as loyally as Spock did, she would have to come to the conclusion that the two of them sitting close together didn’t pool much warmth at all, not if they were both still bundled up in layers of insulation. The only way they could do much to share body heat was if their bodies had very little between them.

“It is biology,” Spock added. All she could see of his sharp, perfectly carved cheek, around the borderline of his hood, was a pale green flush. He sounded pained. “Delay will only reduce the effectiveness.”

“I understand that.” She unzipped her parka, creating an instant vent for the freezing air to find its way in.

That action seemed to give him permission, and he followed suit; soon, they were situated in an awkward little nest. Uhura’s parka was spread across the cold stone ground, insulating them from it, and Spock’s was draped over them. It wasn’t enough cover to hold in their body heat, however, so they had to strip down further. Uhura felt herself flush—there was a degree of warmth in it, at least—as she pulled her red uniform over her head. He wouldn’t be looking at her, she reminded herself, and she wouldn’t have the opportunity to look at him. They’d both be out of sight under their pile of thermal laundry. She fought off a smile. If she had to be in this with anyone, she was glad it was him. It lent a frisson of excitement to the nearness of their bodies—her bare skin so close to his.

“I’m afraid you’re doing more to warm me than I am to warm you,” Uhura said. She could feel almost toasty, so close to him, as if she were lying in front of a fire.

“Standard Vulcan body temperature is several degrees higher than that of humans.”

“And Vulcan is a desert planet.”

“Predominantly. However, though I am unaccustomed to this weather, I am not suffering unduly.”

“Neither am I,” she said, and enough laughter must have bubbled up in her voice for him to give her a somewhat arch look.

“Indeed.”

She was almost close enough to feel the slight rumble of his chest as he spoke. She had seen him shirtless before, once or twice, and she could call to mind the dark spread of hair across his chest, the flat planes of his muscles. No, she couldn’t say this qualified as suffering. Though she might feel differently six point four hours from now, when the cold had had time to seep into her bones. A gust of wind screamed by, the acoustics of their little cave amplifying its sound, as if to remind her that this was no pleasant shore leave.

“I wouldn’t mind some hot coffee,” she said. She shivered, and he moved closer to her, until there was only a fraction of an inch between them. “Though you do make a nice substitute.”

“I have had coffee,” Spock said. “I do not consider the comparison a compliment.”

“But _I_ like coffee, Mr. Spock.”

He inclined his head, as if he were willing to give her only half a point for the flattery, and then he said, “If I may, Lieutenant,” and reached up and cupped his hands over her ears.

He had taken off his gloves while his hands had been under their makeshift blankets, and his bare palms felt shockingly warm to her, immediately thawing her ears and cheeks from icy numbness to a gentle ache. His hands were large, and his fingers were entangled now with her hair.

“Your ears are unprotected without your hood,” Spock said. “You must not succumb to frostbite.”

He was holding her like she was something precious, and they were face-to-face now, unable to turn away from each other without him letting go.

“It would be your ears, not mine, that would be the greater loss,” Uhura said. She reached up and traced one pointed edge, pushing this all just a little further, wondering if this would be it, if they would admit that necessity had only helped them along. But his skin _was_ cold there, and it was hard for her to ignore it. She cupped her hands there, trying to keep her voice steady and playful even as she did worry for him. “What would I sing about if you lost them?”

“As you are our Communications officer,” Spock said dryly, “I believe the excellence of your hearing, aided by the external part of the human ear, should be our first priority.”

“Use before beauty.”

“No.” His voice had gone softer. “You hold the greater claim there, as well. Lieutenant—Nyota—” It was like his words were tangled together; trying to unpick them, he came to a halt, his face flushed, his eyes dark.

“You know how I feel,” Uhura said. “If you don’t, you can find out whenever you like. All you have to do is move your hand.” She tilted her face up, waiting for him to move his hand to her meld points. She had always wanted to offer him this: this kind of _certainty_ , the kind the universe so rarely afforded any of them. She didn’t know whether or not it would hurt. She closed her eyes. “I’ll forgive you if one of my ears gets a little cold in the meantime.”

His hand drifted, his fingers light against her cheek. He was so hesitant, as if he were waiting for her to tell him no, but she only leaned forward into his touch.

It didn’t hurt. It felt like lying outside in strong, warm sunlight, like she was being drenched head-to-toe in light. Images came to mind, as if she were holding up paintings for him, half of them realistic and half either smudged and impressionist or entirely abstract. But he seemed to know, or she did—it was hard at the moment to tell the difference—that images were not the best way to decipher her, not really. He found the music instead: the tunes and symphonies and drumbeats and harmonies and the first time she’d heard him play his lyre, the first time she’d felt the way her voice fit so well with those notes, like she could twine through them like ivy.

“Yes,” she was saying, “yes, that’s it, that’s how I feel.” She was holding his hand in place on her cheek, pressing down on his wrist—almost as if he were touching her between her legs, as if she were close and anxious for him not to move.

She opened her eyes. If any part of her was still cold, she couldn’t feel it.

What she’d felt of him was less, she knew, than what he had felt of her—she’d felt the touch of his mind without knowing how to examine it—but what she had felt had been enough. The first time she’d heard him play had been enough, really.

He was looking at her in something like wonderment. “It is rare,” he said finally, “for humans to—”

If he was going to say it was rare for humans to want him, she had news for him about some shipwide gossip: if Spock so much as tilted his head at someone, Uhura heard enthusiasm about it before an hour had passed.

He found the right words, though, and they weren’t what she had been expecting.

“I know I am considered remote. Cold. But you do not feel that way.”

“You’re not cold,” Uhura said. She leaned against him, allowing herself to rest there. She could feel her heart racing. “I don’t just meant this, either. I’ve never thought that.” He was music where other people were conversation, that was all. “I know the only winter is what’s outside.”

He kissed her, first her mouth and then her neck; his mouth so hot against her cold skin that it was almost like he was burning her. She gasped, the sound ragged and filling up the silence. They could drown out the wind, she thought dizzily, and they would keep each other warm, just like they’d planned. She moved forward until she was in his lap, her thighs to either side of him, and as he approved of the new angle this gave him—as he kissed her neck again, hard and graceless and desperate—she drew one of his hands up to her mouth. She knew all the things that were said about Vulcan hands.

She kissed the inside of his palm, first delicately and then more daringly, and the shape of Spock’s mouth on her neck change as he let out something that might have been a moan. She turned his hand over and ran the tip of her tongue between each knuckle, kissing the back of his hand and his long fingers, over and over again until he found a spot on her collarbone that made her lose focus completely.

He levered her up until she was standing on wobbly legs, the top half of her body nearly bare, surrounded by cold she could no longer feel. Her breasts were heaving inside of her bra.

He stroked his hands down her bare legs, his thumbs providing just enough gentle pressure for her to realize he wanted her to widen her stance. She did, part of her still trying to grapple with the fact that this was Spock down on his knees for her, Spock kissing the inner skin of one of her thighs. Then he licked her open and she couldn’t grapple with anything at all. All she could do was hold on to him, her fingers tangling his ever-smooth hair and leaving it in disarray.

“You are exquisite, Nyota.” His kiss was hot against her clit, his exhalation a tease against the opening of her cunt. He toyed with her with a scientist’s rigorous patience, reading each trembling cue of her body. He drew everything out, alternately licking and sucking, moving away from her throbbing clit whenever she was too close.

She was sagging, she realized: her knees had buckled, and he was holding her up at the same time as he was undoing her. She cried out, pushing her hips forward, riding his mouth. She couldn’t stop herself, even as she knew that she might be hurting him.

But he wasn’t hurt—or, at least, he wasn’t hurt enough to interfere with his own need. When she sank down onto him, her knees squeezing against his hips, he didn’t seem to be thinking of any old discomfort. Or even thinking at all. He looked messier than Uhura had ever seen him, with his sleek dark cap of hair ruffled and even tangled where she’d been grabbing it, with his lips shining from where they’d been against her cunt. She kissed his mouth fiercely, not so much to clean him as to mark him further. She held onto his shoulders as she rode him, and when he came, he rested his head against her breast.

Sometimes, Uhura knew, there was no afterglow, only a sudden, creeping awareness of stickiness or chill or an arm that was at the wrong angle.

But that didn’t happen here. The winter, as she’d said, was all outside. They couldn’t lie down—they didn’t have enough clothes to protect them from the icy stone floor of the cave—but they could and did stay intertwined, their flushed bodies pressed together. 

“I think I’m warmer,” she said.

Spock’s mouth twitched just a little. “Then it was a most effective strategy.”

“One we could practice again before our six hours run out.”

“And afterwards?” The look on his face seemed to suggest he was torn between calling her _Lieutenant_ and calling her _Nyota_.

She wouldn’t have minded either, as long as the meaning behind the word was the same. She answered him by turning her cheek towards him again, and he rested his hand there. Whatever song was in her head gave him all the reassurance he needed.


End file.
